A multiplicity of scholarly evidence emerges continually to generate, confirm or refute certain theories and beliefs. While some of them are presented as impartial and unbiased, many are produced or interpreted to prove a point subjectively, and with a degree of exaggeration for greater impact. This is both unfortunate and unhelpful, for embellishing the truth is counter-productive.

A powerful Mercury Retrograde begins next week, just as the moon undertakes another new beginning: both are aspects of a powerful cycle of challenge and opportunity disguised in clouds of deception, misunderstanding and obfuscation.

Politics is about achieving and then using power wisely and to best effect to help society and the people. Distortion of this principle brings instability and even civil unrest particularly if it follows a long tradition of relative political integrity.

The fires that have raged over Brett Kavanaugh and his suitability to be a Supreme Court judge have subsided since his confirmation on Saturday, but the embers smoulder, ready to reignite over his name, another name or over nothing. A wildfire is burning over swathes of the United States, and it threatens to be fiercer still in time to come.

Some years ago I was invited to attend a talk by a senior member of the Anglican Church. He was a good and engaging speaker, but shocking in his dissection of the beliefs and practices of Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism and other world religions in an attempt to prove that the only valid church in the world was “ours”, and how flawed were the others. Even more shocking, to me, was the complacent approval with which his address was received by his audience, largely fellow-believers.

A word often used for hubris is ego. Ego, the attribute of focus on and often delight in the self, can be a sign of insecurity as well as of confidence, while hubris, however, is always about self-importance and pride. Either way, hubris and ego are an undesirable focus on the self to the exclusion of the well-being of others: it is the doctrine of the I not the We.

This is the time of enlightenment, when humanity as a whole and we as individuals are brought to a conscious understanding of the truth. It is recognised, too, as the highest and final spiritual state it is possible for us to achieve as human beings, and gaining enlightenment brings a stop to the turning of the wheel of reincarnation. The soul has learned everything, and is merged with Spirit.